


The Bibliophile

by petulantgod (prettyclever)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-19 04:07:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/879279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyclever/pseuds/petulantgod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was a genius - that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities.--Robertson Davies, "Fifth Business"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bibliophile

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: For the hp_literotica Quotations Roulette. Written in '04 or '05.

There are days when, looking over at Sirius from underneath ennui-heavy eyelids, Remus almost believes they're young again. On those days, he turns on the phonograph and listens to jazz and dances around the room with the hat stand, and the hat stand extends stiff arms and clings woodenly to him as he sways, kicking aside with dancing feet the desultory detritus of living with Sirius. On those nights, he slips into the big room unnoticed and slides under the coverlet, running hands chilled with evening over sleep warm skin until both are sweating and wide awake. 

Sirius humours him, and they both know it. Remus paints pretty stories of what their future might be, and Sirius nods and smiles as though he really might believe in it, as though it's quite possible that they could find a house in the country with room to run and a copse of old English oaks laden with moss. The smells rise so strongly in Remus' nose as he spins his tales that he can almost taste the loam and the turf, almost feel the silken grass beneath wolf paws and between human toes. He dreams in green.

Stories are Remus' friends, and how he's gotten by in life so long. Pick up a book, run a finger along the ridged spine so like a lover's, spread the covers like thighs and trace fingers over delicate vellum almost like skin... You can make love to a book, if it's the right sort, and a book never keeps secrets if you don't let it. In the library are many ancient tomes, all waiting to be taken, perused and used, absorbed and known. 

If Remus spends hours in the library and Sirius can't understand the appeal, well, Remus certainly won't worry about it. It takes a special kind of person to make a book give up its virtues and hidden knowledges, and Sirius isn't tender enough, gentle enough, doesn't have the patience. There isn't an animal on earth he can't charm, or a human either, but Sirius has no truck with inanimate things. He craves response and sensation, the more spectacular the better. The subtle pleasures of the bibliophile are not for him.

Late at night though, Sirius' feet make their way to the library, and he pauses in the doorway, his pyjama pants slung low on sharp hipbones. The dark trace of hair running from below his navel to vanish under his waistband makes Remus hesitate, stills his fingers on the words they fondle, and he lays his book aside wordlessly. 

"He was a genius - that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities..." Sirius recites, his voice pitched low and intimate, as though he could penetrate Remus with words, as though he knows the secret of the texts now and is prepared to exploit it fully.

"Where on earth did you come up with that?" Remus asks, quirking a greying eyebrow, thrilled at this new game, thrilled so deeply his bones ache with more than middle-age and too long in a draughty room. 

"Oh, I read it somewhere," Sirius croons, and he sashays forward, his feet picking out the steps to Remus' favoured dance, his hands floating in the air as they rest on an imaginary partner. "I'm not an illiterate, you know, Moony."

Remus watches, hypnotised, and Sirius begins to sing softly, wordlessly, and his lips are the colour of the roses in the illuminated grimoire under Remus' right hand. Red like the roses, but unlike ink on an old parchment, Sirius' lips glisten with life, ever mobile as he hums and murmurs nonsense, and it may not be the inscrutable mysteries contained in ageless spellbooks and madmen's diaries, but it's nonetheless irresistible.

Standing slowly, he stretches as surreptitiously as he can to ease the stiffness in joints kept too long still and bent unnaturally over a scholar's feast. Sirius pretends not to notice, but Remus sees the tiny smile forming, carving the smoothness of his brow with miniscule laugh lines. He steps forward into Sirius' arms, slipping into them as he would the most comfortable of old shoes, a perfect fit.

"Together," Remus murmurs before he can stop himself, and then blushes because they don't talk about this, not aside from the sleepy late night groping fumbling thrusting love they make. They don't call this an 'us' or a 'we' and they don't define the relationship. It is what it is, and 'together' is something for spotty teenagers who can't keep their pricks under control, and it is not for middle-aged men....

Dancing in a library as the clock chimes midnight, with no music but the melodic humming of the one who leads, and no reason to dance but love. 

"Together," Sirius echoes, and he smiles that smile that only young boys own, that smile full of tomorrow and slugs, snails, puppy dog tails, and oh Sirius has more than his share of those. 

Enchanted, Remus dances closer, until the heat from their bodies mingles like their breath and as the last stroke of midnight sounds, Remus does what any book-loving man would do in his place: he kisses his Prince in a shaft of moonlight falling from high windows and wishes for a storybook ending.

His Prince returns his kiss, and aristocratic fingers unbuckle Remus' belt smoothly, unfasten his trousers and let them slide to the floor in a susurrant hiss of fabric on flesh. 

"Always," Remus ventures, made bold by the perfect setting, by the desire so plain to read on Sirius' face. "Forever."

Big words. Small in the literary sense but enormous, world-encompassing in that sense by which Sirius interprets things, in that very human and temporal way, in the way of things that grow and change and pass away.

Perhaps he has gone too far. Words can never be recalled once set free, though, and Remus knows this. He wills power into them, calls on the juju of years of faithful worship of the English language to aid him now in his hour of need. 

"Always," Sirius repeats, lavishing a kiss on the lines of Remus' collarbones as he pulls the ink-stained shirt away from Remus' narrow shoulders. "Forever," he inscribes with his tongue on the flat of Remus' stomach as he slides down his body to draw Remus' cock into his mouth.

The gods of the book clearly favour their chosen acolyte, Remus thinks, and he wants to laugh at his fancies, wants to laugh except he can't because he's dizzy with need now as Sirius sucks him hard and laves over his skin with a mouth that marks indelibly. Every kiss lick nip marks Mine in invisible letters, and Remus feels the word sinking through epidermis and into tissue, sinking down until it absorbs into bone. Permanent. Sirius'.

"My Padfoot," Remus whispers, twisting his fingers in the black silk of Sirius' hair, tugging gently and thrusting forward into his mouth, "Mine."

Sirius' lips slide off his length and whisper, "Your Padfoot, yours," and then he engulfs Remus once more, and Remus staggers slightly, one hand clutching at the edge of the desk behind him for balance. He doesn't know what makes him more dizzy, Sirius' words washing over him like honeyed sunshine or the wet hot drag of his tongue mouth throat lips ohhh...

Fingers trailing down the side of Sirius' face to cradle his cheek against his palm, Remus traces the lines of high cheekbone, the sunken curve of one closed eye. Hips rocking forward into Sirius' face on their own time, Remus watches himself disappear into those ink red lips again and again, their bodies ebbing and flowing together like a carnal tide. Sirius opens his eyes and gazes up at Remus, sliding his hands up Remus' thighs and dragging his nails down gently, just enough to sting, to tease, and Remus gasps and comes, words meaningless to describe what he feels.

Sirius turns him carefully, still licking his lips, and bends him over the desk. Remus works quickly to stack important books safely away from them, pushing them to the far side of the desk with trembling fingertips even as Sirius penetrates him, his instinct to preserve the priceless tomes only overcome on the first deep thrust, and then he relaxes completely, melts into Sirius and lets him have his way.

"Yours," he moans, and pushes back to meet Sirius' movements, following the rhythm and letting him lead. 

"Mine," Sirius growls, possessive, suddenly aggressive and snapping his hips swiftly, inexorably, and he leans over Remus' back and bites down on his shoulder leaving raised marks like Braille. 

Even a blind man would know who Remus belongs to.

It is only a moment before Sirius loses control, his body going taut as a wire, muscles flexing and rippling against Remus, and his wordless howl means more than any number of letters could ever spell. He clings and shakes as he spills deep inside Remus, human ink, internal calligraphy to brand and label, Sirius' own signature. 

He lies in bed that night alone, with Sirius in the next room because this is not official, it's not public. It is hard to cling to the memory of their flesh on flesh and lips against lips when there is no one else to acknowledge that it was real, that they are real. Then Remus rolls onto his side and his fingers find the Braille dots of Sirius' bite mark, and he reads his own skin in the dark, reading the word, "Mine," interpreting the meaning, "Belonging." Smiling, Remus dozes off with his fingertips tracing the spot, and he dreams of becoming a book.


End file.
